Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

Businesses today rely on a number of things to help them to advertise their products or services. With real estate, it is all about location. With online businesses, it is all about visibility. In order to engage your website visitors and keep them coming back, you have to give them something that intrigues them. Online video is an excellent way to impress website visitors and keep them coming back for more.

Following is a list of 5 ways that online video can help you to increase your business.

1) Using online video can help you to make consumers more aware of your brand. The first step in increasing your business is to make yourself known. Video is all about making you visible. Creating a video that keeps your audience interested will help to move them through the sales process.

2) Video can also help you to build trust. People typically tend to not do business with people that they do not know. Video will help you to build a relationship with your website visitors and allow them to get to know you, making them much more likely to buy from you.

3) You can also use online video to help you with training. You can train your customers on how to properly use your services or products.

4) Major brands have been using video for some time to increase product sales. Having a video on your site will show your customers that you are serious about your brand and that you care enough about them to give them a better user experience.

5) Finally, you can use video to be in more than one place at the same time. You can send sales associates or executives to trade shows to promote your products without ever having to leave the office. You can save on travel expenses and give your staff more free time to work on other projects at the same time.

Video has been proven to be an effective tool in increasing conversion rates online. You should note however that a bad video is going to do just the opposite. When you decide that it is time to join the major brands in online video, ensure that you are providing your website visitors with a professionally produced video that explains your business message and presents you as an expert in your field.

This article was written by Vidify, specialists in the provision of online video production services at a national level. Visit them at vidify.co.uk today.

According to Jan Ozer, streaming media expert, author and Publisher of the Streaming Learning Center, there are a number of things to consider when you are shooting video for streaming. Ozer says, “Anyone who’s ever picked up a camcorder and tried to tap into their inner- Spielberg knows that there’s a lot more to creating a high-quality, impactful movie than turning on the camcorder and pressing the red record button. The same is true with producing video for streaming.” (From Shooting for Streaming – Five Key Tips)

Ozer says that high quality production value is important to keep your audience’s attention focused on your message and not your mistakes.

“Sure, you can attach your $600 consumer camcorder to a tripod, connect it to your computer, and produce streaming video, but will the quality enhance or detract from your content? Will it look and sound as good as the streaming video produced by your competitors, or other videos your viewers watch online? Fortunately, you don’t need Spielberg-like skills to produce high-quality streaming video, but to optimize the quality of your training or classroom video, it’s important to follow certain best practices.”

Choosing a background – “When a video has lots of detail in the background — like bookshelves, a finely patterned wallpaper, or blowing leaves — the codec can’t tell whether you care about the subject’s face or the extraneous stuff in the background. So it tries to preserve the quality of all the content in the frame, which inevitably degrades the quality of what you care most about.”

Lighting the set – “In terms of lighting style, you can use three-point lighting, which produces slight shadows on the face, or flat lighting, with no appreciable shadows. Either way, the most important priority is to provide sufficient lighting for the camcorder to achieve good exposure without injecting gain into the video.”

Camera usage and selection – “If you’re shooting in a controlled environment, like a classroom or conference room, it’s best to move that camera out of automatic mode, and control exposure manually, which fortunately is easier than it sounds. Basically, there are three controls that control how much light gets to the camcorder’s sensing device; shutter speed, gain, and aperture.”

Framing the shot – “The Rule of Thirds is a principle of photographic image composition that can also be applied to shooting video. Imagine the video frame divided into thirds, both horizontally and vertically like tic-tac-toe board. If the subject is facing the camera, the top horizontal line should be at eye level and they should be in the center of the frame.”

Don’t forget about audio – “Don’t skimp on the audio side of the equation. Viewers accept some visual degradation in their streaming media, but not audio-related deficits, since they know that audio can be nearly perfect, even when delivered via streaming.”

This video comes by way of tech geek extraordinaire Chris Pirillo, as part of his mobile Q&A sessions which he recorded with his iPhone that was mounted on the dashboard of his Prius. He answers the question, “How to decrease video file size” and offers the following advise:

Keep in mind that anytime you decrease the file size of you video, you are also decreasing the quality.

His favorite video encoder of all time is MPEG Streamclip, a free open source video conversion tool for Mac or Windows. While it’s not perfect it is easy to use.

“Video, especially with HD content, can take up a lot of space on your hard drive. Thankfully, there are some easy ways to compress these large files down to a smaller size without doing much to degrade the overall quality.”

Online Video for Motorsports made easy with the GoPro HD
It’s never been easier to get motorsports action converted into online video. Before, enthusiasts would need to strap a makeshift camera to their roll cage or interior bars to be able to record the action to later show off on YouTube or Vimeo.

Just recently, GoPro, a maker of wearable HD video cameras for sports, released a high definition version for motorsports, called the HD MOtorsports HERO. GoPro makes it easy to mount the HD Motorsports HERO to your helmet, car, ATV, motorcycle, boat or ATV that you can easily upload to YouTube for sharing with friends and family.

Sample video from GoPro:

The GoPro makes a perfect gift for those who like car gadgets and car parts because it gives the user the ability to document the competition and then share it. Online Video such as this has also helped performance shops document car builds and show people around the country, and even in other countries what their shop can do.

Online video has been a big driving force in recognition for performance shops, and units such as the GoPro HD is making this easier.
Before, people would take videos with their iPhones or other devices and then upload them to YouTube, but the picture quality was very low. However, GoPro can take 1080p video at 30 fps with incredible audio. Another incredible feature is a still shot feature, so you can take pictures as well as video.

About the author –Alex Polonsky

Alex Polonsky is an automotive enthusiast that blogs over at APtuned (http://www.aptuned.com/blog/) where he talks about the latest trends in automotive high performance. Alex has been in the automotive industry since 1999 and has a passion for online video, technology, and social media. Alex is also co-founder of VidCompare.

When I decided to create a Pocket Video Marketing course some people said to me “What is there to learn? You just hit the record button, it’s simple!” Wrong! A Pocket Video Camera is a powerful communications tool, it’s more than just hitting the record button and shooting yourself against a white wall in your box room.

You can easily make bad Videos that look and sound bad or drag on to long or are devoid of creativity. But making good Videos is a skill that I think every Marketer should have as part of their Marketing toolbox.

A quote I love is this: “It’s not about the Bow and Arrow, it’s about the archer” (Andy Jenkins – The Video Boss). It doesn’t matter what camera you’ve got if you have great ideas and some technical skills, you can make better Videos than 99% of the planet and good Videos will get your products noticed.

So with that in mind here are 3 ways I think you could use your Flip, Kodak, Iphone4 etc. to boost your Marketing efforts.
1. Come out from behind the powerpoint.

If you’ve watched any of the recent Big Internet launches the common thread is you see the Marketer on screen. People connect with people and Video does a brilliant job at
building a bond with your prospects.

I’ve just viewed a new Jeff Walker launch Video. If you follow Internet Marketing you’ll know Jeff’s multi-million dollar earner Product Launch Formula. The first Video was almost entirely real world footage. What I mean by that is you saw him at a whiteboard and then it cut to an on camera interview where he was sat next to one of his successful students talking about how much he had earned from his own launches.

There was nothing in the Video that couldn’t have been done on a Pocket Video Camera and it was much more engaging than a back to back Camtasia presentation.

Don’t get me wrong I think screencasting is very powerful I just think that breaking it up with real world footage is a great way to engage your buyers even more. Put it this way the Big Marketers test like crazy and they wouldn’t go for the ‘on camera’ route if it didn’t work for them.

You don’t need a lot of gear to make these Videos look great, in fact over on my training course page you can see footage that I shot with a Flip camera in a tiny room in my house with lights that cost around £100 a pair!

2. Be a Pocket Video Paparazzi!

Take your Pocket Video Camera everywhere. You never know when you will spot something extraordinary. If you do then it could prove a hit on YouTube and you can link it back to your most relevant product. I also advise people to get into the habit of filming their business and personal life. So if you give talks stick the camera on a tripod and get some shots of your presentation to an audience. If you are making good money on the Internet and spend your weekends on your shiny new sailing boat (!) film that.

Build up a library of clips and you can use these to make a Video where you show your prospects proof of what you do and how your success effects your lifestyle.

If you go to events in your niche, shoot on the fly interviews with participants, upload to facebook, friend your interviewee and use the Video ‘tag’ function to highlight that they feature in the Video. This means the Video will also appear on their wall and get seen by their friends which exposes your brand to new eyeballs.

If you target an interviewee that runs a blog even better. You’ll often find that they will embed the Video in their blog too, as it’s so quick and easy for them to do so and beats writing a long post.

3. Get creative with customer testimonials.

We all know the power of Customer testimonials, but if you want to take them to the next level offer you audience alternative angles. So say you have a customer, Jane who bought your Marketing product and is happy to record a Video testimonial for you, break it into shorter clips.

For example Jane on: “How the product helped me get organised”, “How the product or service made boosted my buisness”, “Why the Webinars were so valuable”. That way you get extra Videos for your YouTube channel and you give visitors to your site a sense of control over the content. Another plus is you avoid making an overlong 10 minute video where you try to pack everything into a single clip.

Even better, go the extra mile and show footage of how Jane has benefited from your product on camera to edit over the interview clips. If we get to know Jane more through Video we’ll trust her judgement even more.

So let’s see Jane working away at home whilst being able to keep her eye on her baby and winning extra clients all at the same time. That way your Video will stand out from the average customer testimonial and your viewers will stick with the clip right to the end.

These are just 3 tips but I hope you can see how powerful your Pocket Video Camera can be. I’ve no doubt, if used well, you can repay the cost if buying it many times over.